Book Description

This dissertation, "A Study of Housing Needs and Aspirations of Young Singletons in Hong Kong and Their Expectations on the Government" by Kin-kwan, Lau, 劉建群, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Housing has ever been the major concern of Hong Kong people. The housing prices of Hong Kong have fluctuated up and down largely in the past two decades. Housing prices reached a new record high in December 2013. Although the housing prices slide down slightly in recent months, they remain at very high level. Private housing became more and more unaffordable to Hong Kong people including the middle class. Many Hong Kong people resort to public rental housing (PRH) to meet their housing needs. As at the end of 2013, there were about 122,200 for non-elderly one-person applicants under Quota and Points System (QPS) and that were even more than 121,100 for general waiting list applicants. This reflects the large housing needs of young singletons for one-person household flats and alarms the public and the government of the serious shortage of housing for young singletons. The housing needs and aspirations of young singletons have ever been marginalised by the government that can be indicated by the housing policy carried out in Hong Kong. Singletons aged 21 or over have only been allowed to apply for PRH since 1985. However, the priorities of allocating PRH are given to family households, elderly and the disadvantaged. The successful housed number of non-elderly one-person applicants in permanent public rental housing increased from only 125 in 1996/1997 to 3,700 in 2004/2005. The implementation of QPS since 2005 has greatly restricted the access of PRH by young singletons because the allocation of PRH is mainly on the basis of age and subject to the annual maximum allocation quota of 2,000 units. On the other hand, singletons have only been allowed to apply for purchase of subsidised sale flats and home purchase loans for purchase of self-occupied flat since 1998. All these are restricted by limited quota, size of flats to be purchased and half of the loans granted to general family applicants. Following the cease of various subsidised sale schemes and home purchase loans from end of 2002, the assistance to singletons to purchase their self-occupied flats also has stopped. From the perspective of housing policy in developed countries, government interventions in the housing market have been reduced for the past few decades especially after Asian Financial Crisis and Global Financial Tsunami. Governments of western countries and developed countries of Asia have shifted to adopt more market oriented housing policy and to encourage homeownership since 1990s. Governments emphasize provision of social rental housing to those in need. People living in social rental housing have then been stigmatized. Consequently, housing prices in these countries have been fluctuating up and down largely and supply of housing has not been matched by the needs of people. Accessibility to social rental housing by young singletons is dampened. Shortage of affordable housing affects young singletons seriously. Many young singletons tend to stay longer at parental home as what Yamada (1999) described as "parasite" single. Mckee (2012) finds that it is an international phenomenon of reducing self-occupied homeownership rates for young people as more young people staying with their parents, studying longer, having difficulty in getting employments, facing restriction on accessing state welfare benefit and in changing household formation. In acknowledgi